In a diversified contemporary society, consumers' need for foods and drinks has resulted in a great variety of selections. With trends towards health consciousness and orientation to taste as a background, various ideas and improvements have been implemented and a great number of new products for consumers are on the market.
As to drinks, carbonated drinks, coffee drinks, and juices have been widely used for a long time. Saccharide and caffeine, which are main ingredients of those drinks, however, are considered to have rather a harmful effect on health. Consumers are shying away from those drinks. Instead, healthy green tea and sports drinks are gaining in popularity these days. It is expected that trends towards taste orientation and health consciousness will continue to be strong and will be of greater importance in the future. Demand for healthy drinks satisfying consumers' taste orientation and health consciousness is expected to grow in the drink trade.
Of healthy drinks, drinks containing essential minerals such as magnesium, calcium, iron and vitamins, which the Japanese are said not to take sufficiently, are starting to attract consumers' attention for their excellent effects on health.
Conventionally, a typical mineral-fortified drink is called mineral water. Mineral water is produced by adding mineral components obtained from ore to drinking water such as tap water. There are many cases regarding mineral water laid open in the patent journal including Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 1997-164390 and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 1997-187777.
These drinks, however, are produced by only adding mineral components. Of the minerals essential for the human body, only one or a few types of target components are included. Although essential mineral components such as magnesium and calcium are added, other essential minor mineral components such as iodine and copper are not included. Some products are produced as drinks by adjusting the taste by adding sugar and sour flavors. In either case, no drinks satisfying as healthy drinks with well-balanced mineral components have been obtained.
To solve the problem that conventional mineral water does not contain sufficient essential mineral components and essential minor mineral components, methods for using seawater as an epoch-making and new mineral source were proposed. Techniques laid open until now include: Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 1985-255729 relating to a mineral supplement produced by desalting seawater to reduce the content of NaCl in seawater and sterilizing it; Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 1991-77689 relating to ionic water for producing foods and drinks produced by dissolving in water (1) a precipitate generated by condensing a solution obtained by acidifying seawater, adding an alkali-fortified supplement and removing a precipitate generated, and further cooling the solution, and (2) a solid obtained by removing moisture content from the solution obtained after removing the precipitate; Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 1993-219921 relating to a drink in which sea water obtained from the deep sea is mixed with tap water; and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 1991-77689 relating to a device for desalting seawater using a reverse osmosis method and adding mineral components by putting the seawater in contact with ore.
Most of these techniques, however, are not suitable for drinks. Those adding seawater cannot avoid the salty taste. If reducing an amount of seawater to be added to suppress the salty taste, only a very small amount of essential minor mineral components is included. In either case, no so-called “delicious” drink has been realized taking advantage of mineral components contained in seawater. There are products using the water of the Dead Sea or Great Salt Lake as a seasoning or an additive for refreshing drinks. The composition of these products is not uniform in all cases because they are natural products. Additionally, it is necessary to dilute the products when used, and adjusting their original taste is difficult. As a result, only a limited number of consumers accept those products.
After having examined the use of seawater for drinks in various manners, the inventors of the present invention have accomplished this invention relating to adding mineral components to water obtained by desalting seawater. This invention has already been applied as Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 1998-51308, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 1999-32760 and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 1999-34162, the present invention further improves the previous inventions.